


Beginning to See the Light

by abstractconcept



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, Frottage, Hate Sex, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:05:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8169391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abstractconcept/pseuds/abstractconcept
Summary: When most people die, they go towards the light. Severus, for reasons unknown, went towards the Black. (In which Severus Snape finds himself in Limbo with Sirius Black.)Still importing! Someday I'll have everything moved over to here. And by then, the platform will be dead and we'll all be on some new platform, sigh.This is another fic that is hard to warn for! Obviously it has character death, but, you know, that already happened and it's about their continued existence . . . I'm choosing no character death. Character continuation! That's what I call it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dementordelta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dementordelta/gifts).



> BETAS: Much thanks to angela_snape, werewindle, silver89kitten—and scotrid, who had the final say in all disputes. All further mistakes are mine.

Blackness.  
  
Severus couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. Did he _have_ hands? One minute he was looking at Potter, and now he was—disembodied. While it was a _bit_ of an improvement—anything would be—it didn’t take long before the situation began to make Severus start to feel vaguely panicked about his own body and where it might be, and whether or not he was in it. He had quite enough on his plate without any existential uncertainty. Unless he was dead, of course, in which case he shouldn’t have anything on his plate at all—should he? _Was_ he dead?  
  
He pinched himself, and it hurt. He could still feel pain, then. Not much of a change for the better, really. And he still couldn’t _see_.  
  
“What—where—” Snape sputtered, reaching out, searching for something— _anything_ —that would give him some perspective, some idea of where he was. Of all the afterlives he’d imagined, simple darkness hadn’t featured largely. He swallowed hard. Was he doomed, then, to exist for eternity, suspended in this featureless gloom? He’d surely go mad.  
  
“Snape?”  
  
Severus blinked. “Who’s there?” he demanded, feeling for his wand. There wasn’t one. He was alone in the dark with an unknown enemy. He felt the flesh on the back of his neck begin to crawl.  
  
“ _Snape?_ ” the unknown voice repeated, only this time it held hues of disgust, bafflement, and loathing. Snape shut his eyes, not that it made any difference.  
  
“Out of the blackness, a Black. Tremendous,” he said. “I _knew_ I was going to hell.”  
  
“Ha, well, you deserve it, but then what am I doing here?” Sirius retorted.  
  
“Would you prefer the list of your transgressions against God chronologically or in alphabetical order?” Snape replied. “It will take forever, but I suppose that hardly matters now.”  
  
“Shut up,” Sirius snarled. “I bet you don’t even know where you are.”  
  
“I did take a stab at hell,” Snape reminded him. “I can’t be too far off, considering the company.”  
  
“Yeah? I don’t see Lucius Malfoy around,” Sirius pointed out.  
  
“That’s because he isn’t dead,” Snape said. “Yet, at any rate,” he added conscientiously.  
  
“What? That evil ponce lived through the war? I can’t believe it! There’s no justice! How’d he manage that, anyway?”  
  
“I can’t imagine.”  
  
“Curse-proof Conditioner?”  
  
“Ha. At any rate, you were saying?”  
  
There was a thoughtful silence in the darkness. “Was I? I don’t recall. It gets to you, after awhile—being stuck like this. You kind of lose track of things,” the man grumbled.  
  
Snape sighed. “You were talking about how this wasn’t hell,” he prodded. “You were going to tell me where we actually were, since you apparently know all.”  
  
“Oh, that. No, I was just going to torment you with the knowledge that I know something you don’t. I wasn’t actually going to _tell_ you anything,” Black said smugly.  
  
Snape’s eyes narrowed in the blackness. After a few moments of calculation, he jabbed an arm out and Sirius yelped.  
  
“You _dead legged_ me!” the man exclaimed indignantly.  
  
“Tell me where we are or I’ll do it again,” Snape threatened. “Or I’ll grab your arm and do that thing where you rub both hands in opposite directions,” he added with great relish. Finally, he could get back his own for all the bullying he’d endured. Perhaps this wasn’t hell, after all. It wasn’t exactly heaven, but he’d take what he could get.  
  
“I always knew you were a sadist. And it’s called a Chinese burn, you great git. And I’m not telling you anything—anyway, I could do the same to you.”  
  
Snape felt suspicion well up just before _something_ grabbed his arm from out of the void and began rubbing vigorously. “Stop that!” he snarled, kicking out. Black refused to let go. With only one arm free, Snape made a quick decision, snatching a handful of long, shaggy hair and yanking as hard as he could.  
  
Black howled at the treatment, returning the gesture. Snape felt the fire in his scalp and tried to wrestle the man off of him—they tussled and growled furiously. Snape tried to stomp Black’s instep, but the man suddenly let go and jumped away.  
  
“Christ! You bastard, you took a chunk of my hair,” he spat.  
  
Snape was busy trying to loose the clinging locks tangled around his knuckles. “You started it,” he grated.  
  
“Me!? You gave me a dead leg! _You gave me a dead leg!_ " Black shouted.  
  
Snape shuddered, suddenly feeling ashamed of his own baser impulses. Two minutes in the same room (well, broadly speaking, at any rate) with Black, and he was reduced to the most ridiculous childhood behaviour. It was outrageous that the man could still elicit such a rise from him. “Where are we?” he growled.  
  
“Limbo,” Sirius said sulkily.  
  
Which explained exactly nothing. “Your stupidity is staggering.”  
  
“But my beauty more than makes up for it,” the man protested.  
  
“And your arrogance rivals even Potter’s.”  
  
“James wasn’t arrogant!”  
  
“I was speaking of the boy.”  
  
“Harry?” Black paused. “Is Harry all right?” he asked with a sudden anxiousness.  
  
Snape huffed. “He was doing just fine when I last saw him,” he grumbled. “He was certainly in better shape than I was, at any rate.”  
  
Sirius sighed and fell silent, as if the fight had gone out of him. Idly, Snape wondered which would be worse; an eternity with a belligerent Black or an angst-ridden one. Neither appealed greatly.  
  
“If this is limbo, how long will we be here?” he queried, trying to remember what he’d read on the subject. Voldemort had not been especially keen on Bible studies, and Hogwarts wasn’t heavy on religious materials either. As far as he could recollect, it was something nigh on eternity anyway. With Black’s company, Snape felt Armageddon should be ticking over any moment now.  
  
He could almost hear Black’s shrug. “Until we’ve finished unfinished business, or so they told me.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“I don’t know. I suppose they were angels or bureaucrats or something. They said I was to stay here until I finished some unfinished business, and then they left me here.” He sighed heavily. “It’s not much different from Azkaban, really, minus the Dementors, of course—unless we count you, and I certainly would.”  
  
“You’ve been here for _two years?_ ” Snape exclaimed. “If you weren’t already a deranged lunatic, I’d expect you to be by now. What’s going to happen to _me_?” he added with growing worry.  
  
“Oh, thanks very much, play up the deranged lunatic angle,” Sirius said bitterly. “Even dead I can’t escape smears to my reputation.”  
  
“There’s not much to smear,” Snape replied. “Even if you didn’t kill the Potters you certainly intended to kill _me_.”  
  
“Would have saved the world loads of trouble if I’d succeeded,” Sirius said unrepentantly.  
  
Snape sighed. “Would have saved me loads of trouble as well,” he said gloomily.  
  
Black kicked him.  
  
Snape snarled, enraged. “What was that for?”  
  
“Just taking you out of yourself,” Sirius said innocently. “It worked, didn’t it?”  
  
Rubbing his shin, Snape glared at the impenetrable darkness. Much as he despised physical touch of any kind, it was all that was left him, and anyway it didn’t do to let the mutt one-up him. “Black?”  
  
“What?”  
  
When he was pretty sure he knew where the voice had come from, Snape launched himself. They tumbled head over heels in the darkness, coming to rest on the relatively soft—for want of a better word—floor.  
  
“Get off of me, you great lump!” Black roared, thrashing.  
  
Snape tried to pin him, but one flailing arm caught him under the chin, snapping his mouth closed and sending him reeling back. He bit his tongue hard, tasting blood. “Damn it,” he swore, doubled over.  
  
“I really, really hate you,” Sirius said, panting.  
  
“Likewise, I’m sure,” Snape told him, rubbing his bruised chin. Suddenly his arm was wrenched back, and he cried out. “Let go of me!”  
  
“Unfinished business,” Black reminded him, a grim, dark voice in his ear. “Maybe I get to move on to the next stage if I kill you.”  
  
“I’m already dead, you flaming idiot!” Snape fumed. “I’ve been fully drained of blood! Nagini bit me!”  
  
“Ha! I’ll bet you’ve used that exsanguination bit loads of times! Everyone knows you’re too clever for that!” Sirius said, ratcheting Snape’s arm up a little higher. He used his other arm to get Snape in a headlock.  
  
Snape fumed. This was humiliating—like some sort of ridiculous sport for Americans and other idiots. True Englishmen—English _wizards_ —didn’t thump each other and wriggle about on the ground like common hooligans. They used hexes and curses, damn it! Black’s hold was starting to cut off Snape’s air.  
  
Snape grimaced and wheezed. “I’m dead! Dead, I tell you! You fucking—”  
  
Black jerked Snape’s arm higher, almost to the breaking point, causing the man’s eyes to sting. Was this how they would spend eternity? Locked in mortal—or immortal—combat? Snape squeezed his eyes shut against the shameful prickle, though the stabbing pain in his shoulder was more than enough to make any man cry. Desperately, he tried to distract himself. He’d be damned (if he wasn’t already) if he was going to beg the bastard for mercy.  
  
Suddenly, something occurred to him. He could feel Black against his back—felt him growing—  
  
“You’ve got an erection,” he gasped, and Black abruptly let go. “You get off on twisting my arm? And you called _me_ sadistic,” Snape spat, sitting up and rubbing his shoulder.  
  
“I did not!” The argument was very weak.  
  
“I felt cold, hard proof! Well, hard anyway. Deviant!”  
  
“Shut up!” Snape ducked, feeling Sirius’ fist whistle past his cheek. “I didn’t touch you!” the man added, sounding panicked.  
  
“Except for the bit where you forced me on my knees and twisted my arm behind my back,” Snape pointed out. He wondered why he didn’t feel more alarmed at the development. Maybe, having died, nothing could surprise him. Or maybe he’d gone insane. Maybe death caused insanity. It was improbable, but far better than the other possibility, which was that he rather enjoyed the idea of Black fancying him.  
  
“Shut your ugly mouth,” Black spat.  
  
“Brilliant repartee,” Snape replied.  
  
Sirius tackled him, slamming him to the ground. “Take it back,” he ground out.  
  
“Right,” Snape panted. “You’re right. It _wasn’t_ brilliant repartee. But then I don’t expect you to recognize sarcasm; it’s a higher form of wit than you’re used to.”  
  
Sirius punched him in the stomach, and Snape reflexively tried to curl into a ball. Sirius struck him again. Snape writhed, trying to buck the man off.  
  
There was a sudden cessation of movement. “You’re hard, too!” Black crowed, sounding astonished and delighted. “You _pervert_ ,” he added, his voice filled with wicked glee.  
  
“It’s only because I hate you so much,” Snape said hurriedly.  
  
“What? You hate me so much that I give you a hard on? You Slytherins really _are_ sick fucks,” Sirius said, sounding, to Snape’s ears, vaguely impressed.  
  
“I just enjoy the thought of having some sort of power over you,” Snape told him sullenly. “The idea that you are aroused by me is empowering. It’s simple psychology.”  
  
“Huh. So why have _I_ got an erection?” Sirius wondered.  
  
“Because you’re a sexually errant _freak_ ,” Snape replied triumphantly. “You enjoy twisted machinations and glorify in lording it over anyone you can get under your thumb.”  
  
“How is that different from what _you_ said?” Sirius demanded, a scowl thick in his voice.  
  
Snape scowled back. “It just is.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I said so! Now get off me!”  
  
“Make me!” Black sounded so smug, so complacent in his physical strength . . . Snape sat up quickly, kissing the man full on the mouth.  
  
He broke away and waited for the horror. There was a long silence.  
  
“Did you just _kiss_ me?” Sirius asked, sounding greatly off-balance.  
  
“Quick on the uptake, aren’t you?”  
  
“ _Why_?”  
  
“I thought you would go into orbit and get off my lap,” Snape informed him.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Apparently I was mistaken.” It was a grave miscalculation. Sirius was straddling him, and Snape could feel the man’s length against his stomach. It was nauseating and strangely arousing at the same time. “You’re not in orbit,” he said helpfully. “You’re still here. You don’t seem to have recoiled in rage and disgust, is what I’m getting at,” he said.  
  
“Yeah. How about that?” Sirius said thoughtfully. “Must be because I can’t see your ugly face. In the dark, with that oddly sexy voice, you’re almost tolerable,” he added.  
  
“Thank you for that ringing endorsement of my charms,” Snape said dryly.  
  
“Sex?” Black said.  
  
“ _What_?”  
  
“As in, do you want to have it? There’s bugger-all else to do,” Black pointed out. “And as long as I don’t have to look at you . . .”  
  
“How _could_ I resist your unrelenting charm?”  
  
“Glad we got that settled.”  
  
Snape opened his mouth to inform Black he needed to be beat about the head with a sarcasm stick before the concept would sink in, but before he could respond, Snape found himself being kissed—forcefully, Black’s strong hand holding his chin in place, with the man’s formidable erection jabbing him in the abdomen. He could smell the musk of Black, rich, slightly spicy and very male, in his nostrils. Snape fought back a quiver of lust and shoved him away. “If we do this, then I top,” he warned.  
  
“What? Hell, no! I’m the more masculine of the two of us! I should top!”  
  
“Are you insane? You’re always going on about your dubious physical beauty!”  
  
“Oi! I brought it up _once_ , and I was being facetious!”  
  
“Liar! You can’t even _spell_ facetious!” Black kissed him again, and Snape gave in and wrapped his arms around the man, holding his own. It certainly gave new meaning to a good licking. He shivered a little as Black ground against him, velvety tongues twisting against each other in the velvety blackness. They pulled back, panting and still salivating for more.  
  
“Oh, hell,” Sirius gasped. He leaned in and kissed Snape again, hands tangling in his hair.  
  
It was odd, trying to undress someone in complete and utter darkness, but Snape found it decidedly agreeable. For starters, he didn’t have to look Black in the eye. For another thing, it was perfectly acceptable, in the process of feeling out his partner, to run a lingering hand over that wiry, heaving chest, to caress that flat stomach, to flicker fingers over a sharp shoulder blade.  
  
Sirius was panting steamy breaths into Snape’s mouth, squirming and groaning.  
  
Snape felt dazed; Black was enjoying this—really enjoying it. Perhaps he’d merely been alone too long—but then, what was Snape’s excuse?  
  
He leaned forward, tracing Black’s jaw, dragging his tongue over warm flesh and stubble. One hand crept down, a sudden, sharp tweak rousing a cry of surprised protest from the man. “Bastard,” Black whispered, but it sounded ambivalent, at best.  
  
“Fuck,” Snape replied, hands frantically trying to free Black’s cock. _What an absurd situation,_ he thought distantly. _I never would have imagined it._ He was imagining it now, all right. He was having to, considering he couldn’t see a blasted thing. But it wasn’t too bad, was it, having the handsome and popular Black sitting astride him, rutting madly and muttering filthy things in his ear?  
  
“Oh, _yes_ ,” Black hissed as Snape finally managed to get his own trousers undone. “Want to fuck you,” the man babbled. “Want it so bad.” The heads of their pricks brushed, both hot to the touch, and Snape found himself arching up.  
  
“ _Ride_ me,” Snape ordered, and Black frotted against him harder, their stiff cocks rubbing almost painfully together. Sirius was still half in his underpants, only the head of his cock poking out; Snape could feel the wet cotton as it bunched and slipped around Black’s length.  
  
He bent his head, nipping at Snape’s neck. He bit hard enough to _hurt_ , and strangely, that felt good, too. Snape struggled to pull Black’s robes over his head, leaving him mostly bare. He ran greedy hands up Sirius’ flank, over his back, savouring the play of muscle straining beneath skin, warm, trembling flesh, delighted goosebumps against his fingertips.  
  
“ _More—more—more—_ ” Sirius grunted. The raw need made Snape’s breath catch, sweat beading on his forehead. Black had no control—Snape owned him, he owned him—there was a prickle of excitement in his blood, a zing, the beginnings of an unstoppable roar of _yes, please, fuck, yes . . ._  
  
The dispute about their position was moot—they weren’t going to make it to penetration—they weren’t even going to make it out of their pants, Snape realized.  
  
His toes curled as he tried to stave off his impending orgasm. He wouldn’t embarrass himself by coming first—he _wouldn’t!_  
  
His belly tightened; he could feel heat throbbing through him. Sirius’ mouth worked down the column of his throat; Snape felt the flicker and wetness, felt the man reach down and squeeze them together. Exhilarated, Snape dug his fingers into Black’s shoulders, dragging blunted nails down his back, feeling the elastic resistance of the man’s skin.  
  
There was a strangled sound and Black stiffened. After a breathless, suspended moment, hot liquid splashed over Snape’s prick, his stomach. Black had come on him—come all over him. _That was incredibly fucking hot._  
  
Just as Snape felt himself soaring, his heart pounding almost painfully, his balls tightening, he saw a bright light. “My God!” he cried, spilling himself.  
  
The light resolved itself and was, in fact, a train. It looked remarkably like the Hogwarts express and bore down on them, whistle screaming.  
  
Black rolled them out of its path with alacrity, and they came to rest a couple of feet away, panting and staring as the thing chugged to a stop. The train seemed to have brought with it an entire station—Platform 9 and ¾, in all its dubious glory. When it finally came to a complete halt, one of the doors opened and Dumbledore popped his head out. They gaped at him from the grimy floor.  
  
“There you are!” he said. “I’ve been waiting forever. All sorted out, then?”  
  
Black scrambled to his feet, rushing to do up his fly. “We were fighting!” he exclaimed.  
  
Snape had rolled away and was hurriedly trying to follow suit. “Fighting!” he echoed hoarsely.  
  
Having returned himself to the most respectable state he could manage, he sat up and looked, with trepidation, at the headmaster, who was eyeing the love-bites on Snape’s neck thoughtfully. “Vigorously and with great passion, I see,” he said in a sombre voice.  
  
“He bit me!” Snape said accusingly, pointing at Black, who nodded.  
  
“I couldn’t bring myself to draw blood, but I bit him. And he scratched me,” he added, gesturing to his back. “We just about tore each other to shreds. Good thing you arrived when you did, really.”  
  
Snape flushed, seeing the rising, parallel welts made by his fingernails.  
  
“Hmm,” the headmaster said, looking closely. “I see. I suppose it’s a mercy there wasn’t any penetration,” he added in an only slightly ironic voice. He gestured to the train. “Boarding?” he asked.  
  
“Where does it go?” Snape questioned, his voice dry.  
  
The headmaster smiled. “We’ll just have to wait and see,” he said. “It’s just a guess, but I imagine there will be many suggestive instances of going through tunnels, and eventually resolved sexual tension.”  
  
Snape felt his face burning, and could see Black’s ears turning red. “Headmaster . . .”  
  
The train whistled. Sirius grabbed Snape’s arm and wrenched him to his feet. “We can argue about it later,” the man said. “Let’s just move,” he pleaded. “I don’t want to be stuck here for all eternity! Are you coming or not?”  
  
“Very well,” Snape said reluctantly, allowing Black to pull him along.  
  
Sirius’ eyes glittered obscenely. “Once you go Black, you don’t go back,” he said with a great deal of self-satisfaction.  
  
Snape rolled his eyes. “You’ve been waiting your whole life to use that, haven’t you?”  
  
“Shut up!”  
  
“There you go with the scintillating comebacks again.”  
  
The headmaster beamed as they clambered onto the train. “Welcome aboard, gentlemen,” he told them. “I’m glad you saw the light.”


End file.
